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WITI Women | Ellen Braun

4. Who has been the most influential person in your life? Why?
My best friend has been a profound influence. She's helped me learn how to focus on more than one thing, to get some balance in my life. The message didn't really sink in while I was doing sports but has started to recently.

My Dad has also been a great influence. He taught me two things I really value: how to argue a point of view with determination and passion, and how much fun it is to walk through the woods when the leaves are falling.

5. What lessons have you learned that would be valuable to women beginning their careers in technology?
The biggest lesson is to have a strategy. Even a poor strategy pushes you to align daily effort and actions to an organizing theme or concept. This is a lesson I started to learn in my cycling career - a mediocre strategy well executed can often overwhelm no strategy. Virtually any strategy can be empowering because it puts initiative squarely in your hands, which not only impacts situations you find yourself in but also your frame of mind. Another lesson, which I fear I'll be perpetually in the midst of learning, is to do your homework. This is about more than just being sufficiently prepared so that things go smoothly. The times I've really developed insights on a topic have been when digging deeply into my work. And being prepared for me is a precondition for feeling confident and communicating with depth and understanding.

6. What new technology do you believe will have the most positive impact on the world in the next 20 years? The most negative impact?
I don't envision one particular technology having a singularly positive impact on the world, but rather technologies and concepts combined in innovative ways. For example, think of what it could mean to combine the Cold War concept of Radio Free Europe with Internet email, handhelds and wireless in a country run by a totalitarian regime. Imagine an ISP outside of the dictatorial control of Burma's leaders, coupled with cheap and widely distributed palmtops used for wireless email service that could wrap the country in a mesh of communication outside of government control. History provides useful models. Technology and the economics around technology can confer great leverage on those and emerging models. And, I'm sure some of the results will be absolutely unexpected and potentially transformational; some with very positive end results.

In terms of negative impact, the evolution of technology makes it that much more powerful to those who use it. And, technology ends up being particularly punishing to people without fundamental skills such as literacy. These two effects amplify each other and can widen the gap in our society. In the US, the industrial age set the barrier to entry into the middle class at a moderate work ethic and basic literacy - kind of a high school equivalency. In the information age, the barrier has been raised to include analytical skills, English literacy and computer literacy. We can't forget how important it is to the entire fabric of this country to always make it possible for any kid, from any background who is willing to work diligently, to make it through college - especially in an age when a college degree, strong work ethic and specific skills are the ticket to the middle class.

Ellen Braun answers these questions:
1. What was your first job in technology?
2. Who has been your most significant mentor? Why?
3. What has been your greatest challenge and what strategies did you use to overcome obstacles?
4. Who has been the most influential person in your life? Why?
5. What lessons have you learned that would be valuable to women beginning their careers in technology?
6. What new technology do you believe will have the most positive impact on the world in the next 20 years? The most negative impact?

On the lighter side:
1. If you could have dinner with any 2 people (living or not), who would they be?
2. What was the last book you read? What books do you love to recommend?
3. What is your definition of success?

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